HOME | DD

Altermentality In reply to Cammiluna [2014-06-13 17:29:02 +0000 UTC]

Did you enjoy Sticker Star though? Because I feel like I would have - I mean it was a pretty cute game - if not for the fact that it as a huge vapid disappointment in the story and character department, compared to everything that came before. It's the very definition of playing it safe and familiar.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Cammiluna In reply to Altermentality [2014-06-14 06:17:27 +0000 UTC]

The only thing I DIDN't like about Sticker Star was how the use of stickers was handled in battle. Regular battles were fine but boss battles required specific stickers at specific times and nobody tells you these things. I wouldn't have made it far without a GameFAQs document handy.

For the lack of story that made the PM series so strong, there was definitely a lot to notice about the game, and a lot of the dialogue was either laugh out loud funny or "god this is stupid" face-palm funny. Like the writers still tried even under Miyamoto's story restrictions.  The toads are racist assholes against Goombas, Snifits think Mario is the bad guy that harasses poor Bowser, the newbie Kamek there has a creepy shoe fetish, and then Mario murders three chain chomps and uses their corpses repeatedly as an elevator lift.

I posted my progress on Twitter constantly back in the day, and wound up filling a lot of voids with ridiculous headcanon and it was fun!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Altermentality In reply to Cammiluna [2014-06-16 18:48:20 +0000 UTC]

That's good to hear! We didn't beat it, but I'm sure we'll be able to go back to it eventually (we: my boyfriend and I, since we end up playing a lot of things in tandem or with me watching him); being the HUGE Paper Mario fan that I am, I can't let it pass forever. I'll get what enjoyment I can from it... I mean, we already bought it and all. So what's done is done! (My boyfriend was liking it a lot. He just stopped playing too because... he does that with some games)

And I can't really truly 100% hold a grudge against a game that has an accordion-playing Shy Guy in it, anyway.

Agreed about the boss stickers though. That was annoying.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Cammiluna In reply to Altermentality [2014-06-23 05:31:43 +0000 UTC]

You don't know how many hours I've spent harassing shyguys waiting in line for the snow ride. It was intentionally for battle badges, but I think I thoroughly enjoyed making Mario look like a total asshole. But then someone tweeted recently that, Mario, back in Mario RPG, had to be physically restrained from punching a child.

Sticker Star also has an amazing soundtrack, I forgot to mention.  Someone finally made a decent rip of the music within this past month and I can't put it down!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Altermentality In reply to LolitheLeopard [2014-08-11 22:24:18 +0000 UTC]

At least Fawful's grammar has a certain amount of sense to it, it's just a different system. You can understand what he's saying.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

LolitheLeopard In reply to Altermentality [2014-08-12 00:25:26 +0000 UTC]

At least Fawful makes an effort to spell correctly.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Altermentality In reply to Turquoisephoenix [2014-06-05 17:59:31 +0000 UTC]

Yeah. I feel like the RPGs keep doing cool things to surprise us, things you wouldn't expect from the Mario games. The first three M&L games had that nice bit of continuity, the first three Paper Mario games had some quite dark bits - both of these resulting in actual character development. #andthentherewasstickerstar. Although to be fair, SS was surprising all right...

Yeah, I was hoping that Skyward Sword would... explain a bit more than it actually did. I mean it KIND OF but not really. Still doesn't feel like the *first* Zelda game (timeline-wise) ought to be, y'know? Not that I didn't like it.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Turquoisephoenix In reply to Altermentality [2014-06-05 21:42:05 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, Sticker Star sure was surprising for people like me who had been following the previews of that game even before the 3DS came out and was expecting so much more, what with the Chain Chomp partner and all that jazz...

Ah yes, Skyward Sword. The game that answered about five questions and created about fifty more. I still like that game, but as an origin story it didn't do that good of a job. I'm guessing we might soon get a Zelda game that takes place even before Skyward Sword and involves the conflict on land before the creation of Skyloft...

Back on the topic of character development and the Zelda series, the Zelda series as a whole has an unfortunate tradition of killing off villains before they have a chance to really shine and would probably benefit with more than one game. People have been championing for Majora to return for a while now (because Majora's Mask is, in fact, named after a being we haven't actually faced before), but pretty much all of the one-shot villains that showed up in past Zelda games would be awesome to return.
For instance, Onox and Veran from the Oracle games, Bellum from Phantom Hourglass, Yuga from A Link Between Worlds...Chancellor Cole from Spirit Tracks (the fact that we never got to actually fight this booger one on one still angers me) or hell, Malladus from Spirit Tracks because he got a grand total of four lines before he exploded and took Cole with him.

Geez, Zelda titles. I know most of the games take place centuries apart from each other, but you can still leave a villain or two alive and have them shake an angry fist as the day is saved so they can appear in Spirit Tracks 2: The Trackening.

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Altermentality In reply to Turquoisephoenix [2014-06-05 23:19:51 +0000 UTC]

"all that jazz" does describe the game's soundtrack though. Which was admittedly pretty nice.

I always feel like I'm alone in actually wanting to see more of Ganon(dorf) because gosh dang I just want them to DO something with him. Everybody likes his depiction in the Wind Waker, why? Because he had at least some kind of motivations for his actions beyond simple lust for power. He's always just like "Har har! I'm a pig! I'm gonna wreck your shit!" He even kicks people out of the main villain spot and is still just pretty boring. I like the dorf. He deserves more.

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Turquoisephoenix In reply to Altermentality [2014-06-06 09:29:13 +0000 UTC]

When it comes to Ganondorf, I feel he should be used rather sparingly lest he end up like he did in Twilight Princess when he was just...there. I also understand that they might be trying to avoid "villain decay" ala Robotnik and Bowser, where no one takes those two seriously anymore simply because they've failed so many times. He is in still more games and, at the very least, gets really big nods to cement his standing as the top villain.

But at the same time, yeah, I...honestly have to agree with you. Ganondorf is kind of overdue for another game, especially after that tease in A Link Between Worlds. I do like that in one timeline they do explain very thoroughly why Ganondorf can never return and why the Master Sword can never return, but then we get one-shot swords and the fandom is pretty "eh" on that notion.

And, again, Skyward Sword. Demise. Not a good enough explanation for Ganondorf's motivations and, if anything, weakens his motivations by saying "oh, there's always evil because this demon SAYS so with his dying breath, the demon that spent most of the game looking like a diseased muppet, and Ganondorf is just a reincarnation and chosen ones 'n' stuff". Oh geez, why add more "chosen one" prophecies on top of the ZELDA franchise which already has chosen one prophecies?

The Zelda villain roster as a whole really needs a kick in the shins to get it going. A lot of people complain about the one-shots (the recent ones like Yuga, Chancellor Cole/Malladus, Bellum, and occasionally Ghirahim/Demise get a lot of flak for being unneccessary) but the one-shots wouldn't feel so bad if, perhaps, half of them weren't one-shots to begin with. Literally the only reoccuring bad guys in the series are Ganon, Twinrova, and Vaati and that's really sad.

I'm not sure what the Zelda villains are really doing that's wrong, but as a whole, I feel that the Mario series handles their villain roster better and is filled with less "dead weight" or characters that people deem useless.

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Altermentality In reply to Turquoisephoenix [2014-08-11 22:37:55 +0000 UTC]

So this is a super late reply but I fell into one of those "Courtney is really crap at checking up on dA" periods

I feel like the one-shots would be better if they were... more memorable. That's why I love Cole, he was just this goofy little leprechaun demon man with TWO TOP HATS. He may have been "too silly" for a Zelda game by some people's estimation, but he's totally unforgettable, at least to me. Byrne on the other hand, badass antihero who's not entirely evil and is "just misunderstood" and has the rule-of-cool crazy metallic arm, it's just, eh. He reeks of trying to trot out some "cool villain"/fangirl-generator tropes but it kind of backfires (although the fangirl-generator did work to some extent, at least it seemed so back when I was a member of a Spirit Tracks fangroup) and makes him bland. Like if he had been the main villain (second to Malladus) of that game, it would have been much worse in my opinion.

Yuga too, he's all about turning people into paintings but there's nothing about his personality or design I feel is especially memorable. And both he and Ghirahim (who I absolutely DO NOT LIKE, get that creepy tongue three thousand miles away from me) have that whole "campy/metrosexual/androgynous dudes are weird/creepy/evil!" thing going on which is just not cool.

And then Malladus and Bellum are essentially representations of evil in abstract. They might as well be interchangeable.

👍: 1 ⏩: 1

Turquoisephoenix In reply to Altermentality [2014-08-12 19:22:57 +0000 UTC]

 I hear you on Byrne. I was not surprised in the least that he got the fanbase that he did back when Spirit Tracks was new because he seemed...like the creators at Nintendo were like "okay, here are a handful of random badass anti-hero traits, go make a character". That being said, I'm actually really happy that Byrne is Cole's minion, because it warms the cockles of my heart that there is the mysterious loner guy with the arm and he's totally cool and stuff...but he gets bossed around by demon leprechaun man. And they're really good friends considering they don't really insult each other until Byrne gets his ass handed to him by small children.

It helps that Chancellor Cole doesn't launch into rants about how pretty, beautiful, flawless his body is. He's just bitter and upset over the gods.

I really hate that the Zelda villains are starting to become campy, metrosexual dudes who are obsessed with their own beauty to the point where their main character trait is the fact that they brag a lot about being the epitome of beauty...no. I don't want this. More characters like Cole or even like Majora please. Or hell, a game with pig Ganon in it again as the main boss and he actually interacts with the storyline beyond being a big pig you kill at the final dungeon.

As for Bellum, I like to think that Bellum is sort of like an Elder God in that only by going into the Ocean King's realm are you able to gaze upon his form without your eyeballs dribbling out of your skull. Makes it more fun.

👍: 1 ⏩: 0